Brussels Briefing
The room full of dark coffins on the Italian island of Lampedusa tells a story of failure and shame that cannot be confined to just one country or one continent — from the poverty and wars that force people to flee to the wealthier countries that do not want or cannot cope with the influx.
The Mediterranean has long been a graveyard for refugees trying to get into Europe, brought in small boats by criminals in unseaworthy boats.
But now a new tragedy has come to light — that of the fishermen who are penalised for helping rescue irregular migrants, according to Morten Kjaerum of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.
Migrants interviewed by FRA told of fishing vessels ignoring them while some fishermen said they usually avoided vessels in distress with migrants at sea.
Italy is to step up military patrols in the southern Mediterranean.
The EU’s data protection assurances are much wider and more stringent than they are across the Atlantic in the US.
As a result, a Safe Harbour agreement was reached in 2003 which US companies could sign, giving assurances to EU customers that they were complying with EU privacy laws.
There are just 3,000 companies signed up, and none of them are airlines or banks.
Now the complaints against those that have signed up are increasing, while many companies’ information is found tobe inaccurate.
In the current climate, with no tiny bit of internet traffic going unchecked by US sources and their counterparts across the world, MEPs understandably called for the suspension of the Safe Harbour agreement to review whether companies on the list were compliant.
IT’S A GIRL: Those three little words, It’s a girl, can be the most dangerous in the world for a baby, according to a report for the European Parliament.
Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell withdrew his name from the report when it was widened to include pro-choice issues he disagreed with.
The report wants an EU ban on clinics advertising sex-selection abortion, an awareness campaign that gendercide is a crime and more educational programmes.
A survey of 79 cities in the EU tried to gauge their citizens’ happiness with their city and their lives. The happiest live in the north — Copenhagen and theother Danish city of Aalborg being a veritable utopia according to 99% of citizens.
About 90% of Dubliners were satisfied overall with their lives by the Liffey, coming 12th. The study noted there was a strong correlation between people being happy and the amount of green space in their city.
Doughty commissioner Neelie Kroes is taking on the telecoms industry. She has outlined a package of measures that will see roaming surcharges disappear, faster broadband, and quicker connections.
“This is a package. You can’t take it apart,” the former businesswoman told the industry.
Telecom companies warn there won’t be any money left to invest and this will leave Europe behind the curve.
“More than 80% of investors think the package will increase investment in faster broadband — we need this urgently,” she said.
More than €500,000 has been awarded to the owners of 99 luxury cars that had been taken by a gang stealing them to order in the Baltics.
Eurojust, working with a joint team from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, disrupted the operations of four, related mobile organised crime groups, all Lithuanian thieves, but operating in Estonia and Latvia.
The investigation took three years, some of it spent getting around the laws in the three countries. In the end there were 25 convictions — and victim compensation of €550,000.
Less than two weeks before the final vote is due to take place in the European Parliament for the six-year budget for 2014-2020, there is no agreement between MEPs and states.
One of the sticking issues is that ministers want to cut aid for regional development if a government does not comply with its fiscal and public debt targets, the Socialists point out.
“This will punish regions with high levels of unemployment for the failures of their national governments.
“This approach, known as macroeconomic conditionality, is absurd, unfair, and counter-productive,” the group says.
Meanwhile, the EU is likely to be €20bn in the red in 2013, forcing the bloc to transfer payment of unpaid bills to 2014, a source said. The forecast shortfall on this year’s €132.8bn budget was discussed at talks between the European Commission, the European Parliament, and Lithuania, which currently holds the EU presidency.
The commission told EU lawmakers that requests for reimbursements from member states between now and the end of the year were expected to amount to €50bn but that only €30bn is left in the coffers. The shortfall is likely to exacerbate friction between states and the EU Parliament.
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